Frank furness



Patented Nov. I; uses.

No. 6l3,625.

F. FURNESS. OBNAMENTAL PANEL.

(Application filed Oct. 21, 1895.)

(No Model.)

Witnesses p \WSNRN MW HZQNLN w #3 F AN.

NITED STATES PATENT Orricn.

FRANK FURNESS, OF PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA, ASSIGNOR OF ONE- HALF TO GEORGE F. STEPHENS, OF SAME PLACE.

ORNAMENTAL PANEL.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 613,625, dated November 1, 1898.

Application filed October 21, 1895. Serial No. 566,388. (No model.)

To aZZ whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, FRANK FURNESS, a citizen of the United States, residing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, have invented Improvements in Ornamental Panels, of which the following is a specification.

The object of my invention is to manufacture panels having an ornamental face which will be comparatively cheap and which will not warp or peel when exposed to moisture or salt air and which will be tough and capable of standing hard usage.

In the accompanying drawings, Figure l is a view of a panel partly broken away to illustrate my invention. Fig. 2 is a view showing the first step in the process of manufacture. the back of the molded panel. Fig. 4 is a view of the frame and wire-netting. Fig. 5 is a sectional view of the completed panel.

My invention is especially adapted to the manufacture of panels for decorative purposes and for use on steamships, cars, 850., where the ordinary panel will become distorted and cracked, owing to the working of the parts and the dampness. This is especially so in ocean steamships, where the damp salt air seems to affect any form of panel as usually constructed. Panels have been made of papier-mach, wood, and metal, but the papier-mach will warp, and if wood is used it will crack, and metal is heavy and does not give the desired effect and in many cases rusts. All these methods are expensive, as metallic dies must be used to produce them.

To overcome the objections above noted,

my invention consists in the novel construc-' tion of panel hereinafter described and claimed.

In carrying out my invention I make a clay model of the design required and then make a gelatin mold A from this model. The material is then prepared for the face of the panel, which consists, in the present instance, of equal parts of plaster-of-paris and paperpulp mixed with liquid to such a consistency that it will pour. This compound is poured into the prepared gelatin mold, as in Fig. 2,

Fig. 3 is a view showing the gauze atforming a casting with one ornamental face. Then the textile netting a is preferably placed upon the material B, as in Fig. 3, forming a tie for the face of the panel. The frame D, with the wire-netting d stretched on the under side thereof, as shown in Fig. 4, is then placed in position upon the back of the casting. The frame is provided with an undercut portion 01, forming a shoulder to allow the material to flow under the frame, and plaster is then poured onto and through the wire-netting d and readily adheres to the cast ornamental face formed of the compound of plaster-of-paris and pulp, so that when the parts are dry and set, as in Figs. 1 and 5, the

whole forms a unitary structure which will not warp or crack and which will stand rough usage.

A number of panels can be made from the mold and from the model at a very low cost, and such a panel is especially adapted for decorating ocean and river steamboats, as the salt air will not affect it in any manner and the working of the boat will not crack it.

By constructing the panel as described above the panel can be designed by a prominent modeler and, owing to the cheapness of reproduction, a number of panels can be made at a cost far less than by any other process.

The face of the panel may be painted or colored in any manner and prepared so that it can be cleaned.

I claim as my invention- As a new article of manufacture, an ornamental panel consisting of a frame D having an undercut portion d forming a shoulder, a wire-netting stretched on the undercut side of said frame, and a cast ornamental face united to the frame, plaster-of-paris passed through the meshes of the wire-netting and adhering to the cast ornamental face, substantially as described.

In testimony whereof I have signed my name to this specification in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

' FRANK FURNESS.

Witnesses:

FRANK E. BEOHTOLD, J os. H. KLEIN. 

